


a form of action

by metonomia



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonomia/pseuds/metonomia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. Their articulation represents a complete, lived experience." - Ingrid Bengis</p><p>Their words reflect how they live, and they are all changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a form of action

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hardlygolden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/gifts).
  * Inspired by [words and other weapons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/75485) by [hardlygolden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/pseuds/hardlygolden). 



Arthur learns to command by listening. He knows how to give orders from the cradle, but to wield authority, to give a command and not merely expect but to know it will be followed, takes years of doing the following himself. Uther tells him to do, to order, to take charge, but Arthur knows himself to be a far better follower than a leader, and in any case, Arthur knows his father well enough to know that anything Arthur does must have Uther’s blessing. His father’s word is law in Camelot, and Arthur cannot imagine it any other way.

  


“They are evil,” his father tells him as the axe falls on a witch, and the young prince knows that Uther is a good king, and he proudly steps forward to read the judgement on the next evil.

  


When Arthur is newly knighted, Uther charges him with hunting down those sorcerers who yet evade them. He rides out with a full company of knights, loses eight in his first raid, and only in the terror of battling magic learns how to give commands. He mimics his father’s tone and Sir Leon’s posture, and on the next raid waits longer, listens more closely, and springs the druids’ trap with no loss to his men. He returns to Camelot with a whole string of sorcerers stumbling along behind him and the knowledge that his words ordered the chains on their wrists and ankles, the burning of their camp, the spilling of their family’s blood.

  


“They would take away our peace,” the king says as two of the druids, father and daughter, are led to the fire, and Arthur looks beyond the courtyard but cannot stop their screams echoing in his ears, their curses which he thinks he and his father might deserve, and their magic which he is coming to realize no command can make cease.

Guinevere knows how words are used and misused. After her mother dies she listens each night to Elyan blame her father, his absence, his long hours working and little to show for it, his fault that their mother had to work so hard herself, his fault that she was so worn down when the fever swept through Camelot. Gwen cannot blame her father when Elyan leaves; if she did, she would have no one left, and her father needs her. Her mother loved and scolded honesty into her, and she tells herself she will never lie to her father, but still, when he asks if she is alright, if she is happy, she says yes.

  


When the lady Morgana comes to Camelot and the housekeeper moves Gwen up from kitchen duty to be her ladyship’s personal maid, Gwen thinks she could be happy. Morgana is bright and sharp with Gwen’s own grief, and wants a friend more than a servant. Gwen does not have to lie to Morgana, can say what she feels unreservedly, and she knows that Morgana, so cheerfully dishonest to Uther, to Arthur, does not lie to her.

  


This honesty between them is a contract, though, and Gwen soon finds herself keeping secrets for Morgana, protecting Morgana with soothing words and gentle smiles, forgetting what she hears late at night as her mistress dreams.

Merlin loves words, dreams in the bottom curve of Cs and hides behind the strength of Ts, loses himself among the twists and turns, precise dots and furious scribbles. He is no warrior, though he is stronger than they - everyone - think, but magic is not his only weapon. Or at least, his magic would be nothing on its own. It is in words that he sees the true power, halting time here and healing there, and in between marking his advances and retreats, protecting and evading, always hiding.

  


This is Hunith’s gift to him - letters, sounded out by the fire each night until he can read their few books with no thought. When he is bored of those she teaches him to write, charcoaled sticks on slate and a thousand mistakes rubbed out, and he makes his own words; mundane things, the number of sheep in the low pasture and the tone of their cries on shearing day, the shapes among the tree branches as they shed their leaves, his adventures with Will. He shows his mother his progress each night proudly, for there is money and security in scribing, and they are always short on both.

  


Then his words turn on him - he speaks, and the sounds come to life in smoke or light or water. He learns to silence the magic, but the words are just as powerful when unsaid, resounding in his mind, echoing in his heart and spilling out in stronger magic, and there is no longer a place in Ealdor for Merlin and his letters.

Morgana dreams in visions but remembers the future in words - accusations and confessions and battlecries. Often they have no meaning for her, all strange banners and mighty armies and the shadowy swirl of magic. Sometimes she sees Arthur and his new servant. Sometimes she sees herself.

  


She has always been sharp with her words, protection against Uther’s care and Arthur’s challenges, her only weapon as a lady alone at court. They grow sharper with each night the nightmares come, her excuses wilder as she slowly, painfully realizes what is in her mind and how powerless she is to keep it away. She listens at dinner each night as Uther’s crusade against magic grows, never sated by the blood of the hundreds she has seen killed, more vitriol in his voice with every one sentenced to fire or axe. She watches Arthur grow away from his father’s madness, shadowed by the ever-earnest Merlin, watches Gwen change before her very eyes - unless it is herself who changes. Morgana exists only in a hazy moment where her dreams burn away enough for her to get up, move about, speak; she does not know herself and so she does not know anyone around her. She breathes, and eats, and speaks, and always returns to her dreams.

  


And Morgana wakes with a cry, no words within her for what is to come.


End file.
